Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 1 (of 2)

IN this book the writer has endeavoured to give as complete an account as possible of the life and career of the younger Holbein, together with a description of every known picture painted by him, and of the more important of his drawings and designs. The earlier books devoted to the subject—such as Wornum’s Life and Works, 1867, and Dr. Woltmann’s two volumes—although they must always remain of the utmost help to the student, are now in some respects out of date. The second edition of the latter’s great work, in which he modified and corrected many passages in the earlier issue, has never been fully translated into English; while the latest book of importance on the subject published in this country, Hans Holbein the Younger, by Mr. Gerald S. Davies, M.A., 1903, is mainly devoted to the art of the painter, and does not profess to give complete biographical details of his life. In recent years many new facts as to Holbein’s career have been discovered, and fresh pictures by him unearthed, while modern criticism has reversed some of the earlier conclusions respecting the authorship of a certain number of works at one time attributed to him. Much valuable information upon the subject has been published at home and abroad, largely in periodicals devoted to such matters and in the transactions of artistic and learned societies, by various well-known students of the master in Germany and Switzerland, chief among whom must be mentioned Dr. Paul Ganz, the director of the Public Picture Collection in Basel, now recognised as the leading authority on Holbein, together with Dr. Hans Koegler, Dr. Emil Major, H. A. Schmid, and other writers too numerous to mention here; while in England equally valuable contributions to our knowledge have been made from time to time by such critics as Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., Sir Sidney Colvin, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, Sir Claude Phillips, Miss Mary F. S. Hervey, and a number of others, in the pages of the Burlington Magazine and elsewhere. Much valuable information is also to be found in two recently-published volumes—Dr. Curt Glaser’s Hans Holbein der Ältere, 1908, and Dr. Willy Hes’ Ambrosius Holbein, 1911.

The writer has availed himself as fully as possible of the newer facts and conclusions embodied in such papers and communications, the source of information in all cases being fully acknowledged. A very careful study of the Calendars of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, extending over a number of years, has enabled him to add some fresh items of information about the painter and certain of his sitters, and of several of the artists who were his contemporaries in England. He has dealt at some length, though necessarily in a condensed form, with the chief painters and craftsmen, both English and foreign, who were at work in London under Henry VIII, much of the information thus brought together having been hitherto scattered about in a variety of publications not always conveniently accessible to the student. He thus hopes that the book will to some extent serve the purpose for which it is primarily intended—the provision, in as concise a form as possible, of a complete biography of the painter, embodying all the more recent discoveries; and he trusts that it may be of some small service to those who are interested in Holbein, but have neither the time nor the opportunity to avail themselves of the many scattered sources of information which he has attempted to bring together within the covers of a single book.

By the gracious permission of His Majesty the King, the writer has been allowed to include among the illustrations, reproductions, in some instances in colour, of a number of pictures and drawings by Holbein in the royal collections; and he has to thank the Lord Chamberlain and Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, for the kind assistance they rendered him in obtaining such permission. He has also to express his grateful acknowledgments to a number of owners and collectors for similar permission to reproduce works by the master in their possession, among them Her Majesty the Queen of Holland, who has graciously allowed the inclusion of the beautiful miniature of an Unknown Youth; the Duke of Devonshire, G.C.V.O.; Earl Spencer, G.C.V.O.; the Earl of Radnor; Lord Leconfield; the Earl of Yarborough; Sir John Ramsden, Bt.; Sir Hugh P. Lane; the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan; Major Charles Palmer; and the Barber-Surgeons’ Company. Special thanks are due to Lord St. Oswald for permitting the large “More Family Group” at Nostell Priory to be photographed for the purposes of this book, and for allowing the writer to take notes from a very interesting manuscript containing a description of the various versions of the Family picture compiled by his grandfather, Mr. Charles Winn. He has also to record his great indebtedness to Mr. Ayerst H. Buttery for giving him the privilege of reproducing the recently discovered portrait of an Unknown English Lady, formerly in the possession of the Bodenham family at Rotherwas, near Hereford. His thanks also are due to Senhor José de Figueiredo, director of the National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, for permission to include the elder Holbein’s “Fountain of Life” among the illustrations, as well as to the directors of a number of galleries and museums, including the Public Picture Collection, Basel; the National Gallery, British Museum, and Wallace Collection; the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin; the Imperial Gallery, Vienna; the Louvre, Paris; the Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague; the Metropolitan Museum of New York; the Royal Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg; and the Galleries of Dresden, Munich, Hanover, Rome, Florence, Solothurn, and elsewhere.

In addition, he has the pleasure of recording his great indebtedness to Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., for kind assistance and advice; to Mr. Maurice W. Brockwell, for much valuable help in many directions; to Mr. Campbell Dodgson, who was good enough to assist in the selection of woodcuts from the British Museum Collection for the purposes of reproduction; to Dr. George C. Williamson, through whose kindness the writer has been able to make use of his Catalogue of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s Collection of Miniatures; to the Editors of the Burlington Magazine of Fine Arts for permission to include the writer’s paper on Holbein’s visit to “High Burgony”; to Mr. James Melville for transcribing from the Balcarres MSS. a long letter from the Duchess of Guise referring to that visit; to Herr F. Engel-Gros for information about the interesting roundel in his possession, which possibly represents the painter Lucas Hornebolt; and to Dr. James H. W. Laing, of Dundee, to whom he is deeply indebted for most generously undertaking the very onerous task of reading the whole of the proofs. He wishes also to offer his grateful thanks to his publishers, and in particular to Mr. Hugh Allen, for the great care and trouble they have spent upon the book, and for their hearty co-operation in attempting to make it as complete a record as possible of the great master to whom it is devoted.

A. B. C.

BIRMINGHAM, August 1913.

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